June 2002: This climb would be the final adventure for my crew. The wife, myself, and our two 13-year olds were finishing a 10-day climbing/hiking road trip in our RV. The week before we started in Okla City and traveled to Yosemite, Death Valley, Red Rocks, and finally to Zion NP to climb Angels Landing.

We arrived at Zion after driving from Red Rocks/Las Vegas. After taking the shuttle from the visitor center, we began our climb at around 2:00 PM in the absolute heat of the day. The first section of the trail is very easy. Although it is a pretty steep climb at times with many switchbacks, the trail is paved. I had never seen a paved trail before. The pavement ends at the top of the ridge where the switchbacks end. From there, the class three section begins. This section would probably intimidate a lot of people who have never done much mountain climbing. Although there is some exposure, there are chains to hold onto which are attached to the rock and poles. A couple of people hiking before us turned around and started heading back after reaching the class three section. Not my crew. We headed straight up the ridge and reached the top in short order. We took the obligatory pictures/video and headed down. This hike was one of the highlights of our entire trip.